


Borrowed Time

by sallyamongpoison



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Cullen and Samson had a long life together, Deathfic, Illness, M/M, Post-Trespasser, Suicide, sort of a 'died with their boots on' sort of situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9218933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: In which, after twenty years together, Samson must square with the fact that they won't go out as intended.





	

This was never how it was supposed to go. Then again, the last twenty years weren’t how things were supposed to have gone either. Arguably, they shouldn’t have been alive. Samson had known that for years. They should have died in Kirkwall. Or, at least, he should have. The lyrium addiction should have done him in years ago, should have taken his mind and his body, but…it hadn’t. The Inquisition should have killed him. Corypheus should have killed him. He should have died in that war. Cullen should have been the one to find him and put a sword through him. That, or they should have died in the riots before it had even happened. As far as Samson was concerned they’d been living on Maker-granted borrowed time since the Order had collapsed.

Twenty years was a lot of borrowed time. It was a borrowed life, one he’d never expected to have, but it had been a good one. After Trevelyan had disbanded the Inquisition and essentially gave Cullen the chance to retire…it was another life. Another home. It wasn’t Kirkwall, which wasn’t a bad thing, and it wasn’t the hard life he’d expected to have once he’d been cast aside and pulled from near-death from the red lyrium. That should have killed him. So many things should have killed him.

A long life on a farm with the man he loved wasn’t the life he deserved. While he’d never been much of the praying type, Samson did have the good sense to thank whoever might have been listening every morning when he opened his eyes. He thanked the Maker and Andraste for another day, another day of increasingly sore muscles and worsening eyesight as the years went on, and every day he was given something he’d never hoped to have.

Cullen. Former Commander Cullen _fucking_ Rutherford.

Samson thanked whoever might be listening every day for the fact that the man had not only forgiven him for the past, but that he also wanted some kind of future. It wasn’t always easy, not that anything between them ever had been, but that more than anything was what Samson expected. When he’d been recovering from the damage the Red had done he’d been horrible, but Cullen had been patient. When Cullen had to step away from the Inquisition and embrace a life that had little to do with training recruits or making battle plans Samson had tried to give him the space and support he’d needed to readjust. When they’d built the cabin that had turned into the Templar Rehabilitation farm, they’d argued and gotten a bit hurt here and there, but they’d laughed a lot of it off and eventually made a life together.

Twenty years. Twenty years of borrowed time.

Six years on, not counting the years back in Kirkwall and the time they’d played at not being _something_ while he’d been under Cullen’s watchful eye before the Inquisition had ended, they’d gone to Val Royeaux. The Seeker…no. Divine Victoria, Cullen’s old friend and comrade, had performed a very small and subtle ceremony with only a few people there for them. Samson hadn’t been thrilled to see some of those faces since they’d been the ones demanding his head on a pike, but it had made Cullen happy. His family, too, had come. Samson had met them a few times over the years, and they’d warmed to him as best as he could have hoped. They had rings, real proof of their life together, and it had taken a few years for Samson to even believe that it was _real_. Their life was _real_.

This…wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Wasn’t how things were supposed to end. He’d always prepared to die in battle. Samson had come to terms with that, and before every single one he’d made his peace as best he could. This, ironically, wasn’t peace. Dying an old man was never how he’d expected things to go. He’d wanted it to be quick and perhaps painful, but at least it would have been for something greater than himself. For years he and Cullen had lived for themselves and the charges that had come to them, had lived a life that rarely extended beyond the acreage Trevelyan had granted them. For it to come to this was almost more cruel than to have died on the battlefield. So cruel.

It was even more cruel that he hadn’t gone _first_.

Twenty years of battle and blood and evil, and it had been a chill that had taken Cullen from him. Sickness. Old age and a lowered immune system were the culprits, Samson knew that, but every day it killed him a little more to see Cullen grow weaker and more pale. Sick. Dying. Once upon a time that meant the addiction was leaving them, that perhaps they’d be stronger and better after. That was twenty years ago, though. That was when they’d been younger and able to come back from things like that, even from the brink of death, and smile and kiss and have their life. The sickness robbed them of it. It robbed Cullen of speech and of his mind, and when it finally got to be too much…Maker help them.

Cullen had always been one to suffer beautifully. The man lived to repent for his sins, had done time and time again, and always was the most beautiful when he did. That pain made him who he was, made him stronger and better than Samson could have ever hoped to be. This suffering, though? This was…it wasn’t Cullen. This was nature exacting revenge and the Maker finally cashing in on that borrowed time they’d been given. The fever, the nightmares, the weakness…the healers had said he wouldn’t recover. There was nothing left anymore to fight it, and that they should just enjoy the time they had. That time, however, was tainted. It was tainted with the inability to talk and to be close, and it was tainted by the fact that the man in the bed that was slowly dying wasn’t the Cullen who had been at Samson’s side for three separate lifetimes.

The suffering ended. Cullen had prayed for it, asked for it, and it was granted. He should have died with a sword in his hand, should have gone out in a blaze of glory, should have…anything but this. Nature didn’t grant him that kind of death. Nature had granted him something slow and creeping. So…Samson had to step in.

Former Commander Cullen Stanton Rutherford died a hero. He’d died loved by the so many he’d helped to heal, helped to grow into something better, helped to make Thedas a fucking better place than it had been. He’d died with a smile on his face. He’d died not from a wet cough that stole his breath, not from a fever that took his mind, but from the sword to the heart that he’d deserved.

Former Traitor and Knight Templar, Former General Raleigh Samson to the Old God Corypheus had made sure of it. It was swift. It was painless. It was with a word of love and a promise that Cullen wouldn’t be alone. He’d meant that. He’d tried to give Cullen everything he deserved in life, and had made damn sure he did it in death as well.

Twenty years of borrowed time had come to collect.

After the funeral, after the people had gone and Samson was alone, he kept his promise. Cullen wouldn’t be alone. Samson would never leave him alone. He’d not left him of his own design over the years, and he wouldn’t leave him now. Twenty years was enough, after all, and however many more without the bright and wonderful love he’d shared was a life he wouldn’t live. Not now. Not anymore.

Former Traitor and Knight Templar, Former General Raleigh Samson to the Old God Corypheus died two weeks to the day after his husband. Cullen’s sword, the same one that had ended his pain and suffering, had ended Samson’s. He’d always known that was how he wanted to die, and he was at peace.

Maybe now, in the next life, they could live on time that wasn’t borrowed. Wasn’t tainted.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I wrote anything, thanks Real Life, so I decided to jump back in with some angst. I've been promising it for a while, so...here you go. Also, you can find me on tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


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